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Painting Desks

Good evening everybody! Thankyou for stopping by again. Tonight, I write despite an all-night rave that's been set up about two hundred yards from my flat. Bad news: (according to my letter to the council) this is now the third night of imaginary sleep my imaginary baby daughter has lost. Good news: Insomnia = all-night painting session! So much has been done over the last few nights (and mornings) - but today I'm going to post up a little update on my various paint stations and work areas, so that hopefully others will join in and we can have a nice exchange of ideas.

The Desk

Unlike a lot of wargamers I'm lucky in not having any family with me in the flat (except my imaginary Imperial Guard friends), so I'm a lot more free than many to sprawl my stuff over the dining table on a semi-permenant basis.

The Colonel Scipio painting operation is divided up in to three parts. The Desk (left and right) is where most of my day-to-day painting goes on. Paints and glue on the left; brushes, water and basic tools on the right, and modelling board in the middle. You can just see the light in the top of the first picture. (And also Jeremy Brett on the computer screen, who keeps me company as well)

I was going to tidy my desk up before taking these, but then I decided to go for ... the 'natural' look. Sometimes its messier than this, sometimes its tidier. The semi-finished projects on the top of the desk also take up a lot of space.

The Hangar
I call my second desk the Hangar. It used to be a coffee table in a past life and slowly moved closer to the dining table, getting more and more modelling stuff on it. Now, it humbly serves as a repository for my bitz box and Osprey books, as well as the bulkier accoutrements of wargaming like spray, flock, glue, terrain, etc etc. Basically allows me to keep all my actual modelling area clean and tidy.

The Hero of TelemarkThis is the DVD case (named after the DVD it used to contain) which I use when I'm slyly painting models on quiet days at work. The case and blu-tack keep my brushes safe on the Tube and all I need apart from this is a mini carrier-bag to keep the paints in and an Altoids tin for the two or three models I'm working on that day. All this comfortably slips into my trainers in the gym bag. Made to measure. I also use this for transporting stuff when I'm painting at home/on the train. Cheap and cheerful!

Just to prove to you that I've actually been doing some modelling with all these desks and DVD cases, here's my latest work on the Iron Hearts...

And that's it! Thanks for reading folks, and if you have any thoughts on modelling and painting spaces I'd love to hear them. Until next time...

@Blitzspear: I used to have a complete bombsite but it really does help productivity - also I've stopped lying on my sofa and impaling myself on lost spears/swords etc. Heroes of Telemark is still in my DVD player, currently on the third re-watch :)

@Gordon: Sherlock Holmes is great - and Jeremy Brett is probably the best. Do you prefer Edward Hardwicke or David Burke?

Curses, my mobile telephone comment seems to have vanished. I love the idea of the DVD-turned-secret-portable-case, brilliant idea. I hope the rave you mentioned hadn't started out as a Jubile barn dance ;)

I have a similar overflow problem with my hobby space, mine is a bit worse than yours. It started in the bedroom with my primary desk which soon spilled over to my computer desk, then there was the Anschluss of the kitchen table now forever part of the painting Reich. At times I feel a bit like the fuhrer in a claustrophobic bunker with the occasional crashes of impending deadlines heralding the end. That started out as a WWII metaphor and got really dark, don't worry no cyanide and bullets for me, I just occasionally sweep everything into bins and start fresh.

@Headologist: No, that was Yeovil Aerodrome ;) I hadn't thought of its merits as a clandestine painting case, I could sneak my stuff through customs!

@Mordian: Thanks, really excited about the Iron Hearts; they'll be my next big drive to finish. Mine's not that tidy but I do try and keep it organised - it evolves anyway, taking on a life of its own and things move slowly to their proper place.

@Chris: Haha, I love the metaphor there - that's the main reason for tidiness is there's no 'enemy' since I have the flat to myself when I'm in town. But my girlfriend is staying for a week soon so she might have strange, unorthodox ideas about using the dining table for dining, then move in with a heavy assault of coasters and vases surrounding my beleaguered painting forces, before finally smashing the salient with dinner plates and glasses of non-branded supermarket wine. Not one step back, comrades!

I prefer Davíd Burke, but Edward Hardwick has made it very well. Burke has an "darker" image and face, then Hardwick in my opinion. Hardwick is an "good old dad" character, i love him, but i had to got use to him. What do you think about David Suchet as Hercule Poirot and Hugh "Wellington" Fraser as Captain Hastings ?

I think Edward Hardwick was my favourite - a bit less jolly and happy than Burke but both were fine actors. I don't watch as much Poirot as Sherlock Holmes but I think David Suchet in particular does a fine job - interesting to see what he would have made of acting Holmes!

I just stumbled across your blog from a comment you left on another, Charging Carnifexes. Having read a few of your most recent posts I couldn't believe it when I saw this one, I'd posted something similar about my workspace on my blog the other week too!

Thanks for stopping by! Proof, if any more was needed, that great minds think alike ... I've not done one of these general wargamey posts for a long time, but I like to break up my miniatures posts with odd ones about paiting in general, or beardiness, or (especially) fluff. Cheers for the comment, and I'm a follower of yours too now!

LOL, yeah I thought about showing off my desk set-up too, but I haven't had the time to post about anything recently so it's still on the 'things to post about' list. I was in a tiny unit last year but now I'm in my own house I have a decent size desk, and wait for it, an entire shed mahahahaha. Thanks for showing us your set-up. I think that aspect of the hobby is really interesting.

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I'm Ed, and welcome to the Palladian Guard blog. This site formerly followed the fortunes of my 40K army, but now I also post about my wider interest in historical gaming, as well as all my painting and modelling.

If you like what you see, or want to know more, email me at colonelscipio(at)yahoo.co.uk.